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Worth upgrading E8400 to Q9650

G

Ghosthunter

Weaksauce
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Messages
110
I have

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
GIGABYTE GA-EP45-DS3L
OCZ Platinum 4GB DDR2 1066
XFX GTX 260 OC
WD SE16 7200 RPM SATA 640 GB
SAMSUNG 22X SATA DVD Burner
CORSAIR 750TX PSU
Vista64


and was thinking of getting the Q9650 since it dropped in price $329

Should I? Or should i just wait and get the I7? I wanted to upgrade to the quad to get better performance for games like GTA4?


Thanks
 
I came from a 9650 on p5e3 premium deluxe wifi. You have a 8400 now old tech, you are wanting to get 9650 which is old tech. if you are overclocking you will not c that much of a difference only in some apps that use the 9650 on all cores only. Granted you stay with what you have now then do a full upgrade for the price you are paying for the cpu alone add about 350 to it and have a kick ass [H] system. You should easily step the bounds to ic7 I say wait, and forget the 9650 go straight to ic7. And as you know the 8400 is not a slouch either just old tech. Also could sell the 8400 ,mb,mem use that to get ya another 260 or to offset the price of the ic7 setup buy at least 250.00 ic7 all the way no sense in buying old tech.
 
Plumber4life said:
as you know the 8400 is not a slouch either just old tech.
...
ic7 all the way no sense in buying old tech.
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Sojuuk said:
I would suggest waiting.
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^^^ Good advice. You aren't losing much in performance for right now games except GTA4 (and supreme commander if you play that) so consider waiting for the next "tock" on the i7 and look to upgrade then.
 
how much does it cost to upgrade right now to i7 approx?

i need to replace everything right? mem/motherboard/cpu?

what would it run approx?
 
Raudulfr said:
Around $650 for CPU+MB+RAM, more or less depending on your choice of parts.
Click to expand...


yeah it not worth upgrading to a quad then thanks!

i may as well wait

i am tempted to go for the i7...but $650 is just not doable right now

when do you think will be a good time to upgrade? any idea when prices might be cheaper?
 
You could probably shave off maybe around $75/80 by using a cheaper not so high-end motherboard and cheaper RAM or save an extra $50 by going with 3GB instead of 6GB of RAM.

I think you'd be better off waiting for the 32nm Core i7 refresh, that's my opinion and I just happen to agree with the others.

I also have a E8400 and I would also love to upgrade to a quad-core until I go i7 at its next refresh but I think I'll just keep my E8400. Not really worth it with so little games taking advantage of quad-cores.
 
Don't forget that i5 eventually coming out. I would wait for that if I were me AND I AM!
 
Ghosthunter said:
i5? what differences? I need to catch up? that sounds lower end then the i7?
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dual channel DDR3 instead of triple channel, some possible dual cores with HT. Different socket as well. I'll invest in that when it rolls out.
 
I would definitely wait.

I don't like the idea of i5 and i7 having different sockets. So if I start out with a low end i5, I can't upgrade to an i7 without buying a new motherboard. :(
 
Best would be waiting, and in a year or two buy a whole new pc instead of keeping upgrading all the time ;)
 
Best would be waiting, and in a year or two buy a whole new pc instead of keeping upgrading all the time
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Upgrading is more fun than using the damn thing. You will see a difference in performance, but, as stated, not across the board. I just switched my main rig from an E8600 @ 4.2 to a Q9550 @3.8 . It did not make a lick of difference in (the very few) games that I tinker with. It did, however, make a huge difference in my work apps (autocad, 3dsmax, photoshop, premier)

If I were you and was happy with my gaming performance, for the apps that I am using now, I would leave it be and wait until something you really enjoy (or need to do) is lagging. At that point make an upgrade to the sweet spot (currently the q9550 IMO)

Don't forget that i5 eventually coming out. I would wait for that if I were me AND I AM!
Click to expand...

i5 = mainstream computing,
i7 = for the enthusiast

Since you are running an E8400 I would assume that you fall into the second category
 
sgrinavi said:
Upgrading is more fun than using the damn thing. You will see a difference in performance, but, as stated, not across the board. I just switched my main rig from an E8600 @ 4.2 to a Q9550 @3.8 . It did not make a lick of difference in (the very few) games that I tinker with. It did, however, make a huge difference in my work apps (autocad, 3dsmax, photoshop, premier)

If I were you and was happy with my gaming performance, for the apps that I am using now, I would leave it be and wait until something you really enjoy (or need to do) is lagging. At that point make an upgrade to the sweet spot (currently the q9550 IMO)



i5 = mainstream computing,
i7 = for the enthusiast

Since you are running an E8400 I would assume that you fall into the second category
Click to expand...

Yep I would say I am an enthusiast, right now all the games I been playing have been playing great, though I am sure I could get better performance by upgrading my video card and going for the i7 just nto sure how much of a difference right now

the only game I know that I want to play but been holding back on purchasing is GTA4 because i heard there are so many issues unless you have at least a quad core

so not sure if worth spending so much money for that...may as well just get a ps3 or xbox360
 
Ghosthunter said:
the only game I know that I want to play but been holding back on purchasing is GTA4 because i heard there are so many issues unless you have at least a quad core

so not sure if worth spending so much money for that...may as well just get a ps3 or xbox360
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You would be better off. The PC port of GTA4 is a turd that should never have been released in the state it was. I'd rather have no port at all rather than a lazy, bug-ridden one that won't even let you use anisotropic filtering FFS.

As for upgrading, if I had the money I'd grab a Q9650 just because. i7 isn't cost effective 90% of the time for what you get if all you do is just game and already have a powerful C2D or C2Q system.
 
We have very similar systems and I was thinking the exact same thing. I don't think i7 is even close to being worth the price of upgrading at least 3 components. I'll probably just wait for a refresh or go Q9650 when the prices drop again.
 
Yep I would say I am an enthusiast, right now all the games I been playing have been playing great, though I am sure I could get better performance by upgrading my video card and going for the i7 just nto sure how much of a difference right now
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What res is your monitor? Is it worth grabbing a GTX285 for the time being? Maybe that will solve your immediate needs and give you item #1 on your upgrade path.

the only game I know that I want to play but been holding back on purchasing is GTA4 because i heard there are so many issues unless you have at least a quad core

so not sure if worth spending so much money for that...may as well just get a ps3 or xbox360
Click to expand...

I dunno about all that, I would think that you would want to save your cash for that, eventual, system overhaul,
 
While the Core2, Core Quad are "old technology", they still work pretty well for most application. Plus, the ~10% increase in performance is not worth the cost imo. I don't think I would switch platform until there's a noticeable increase like the core2 from Pentium D. As for the OP, I would keep the E8400.
 
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